When people beg for help but then take credit for your ideas

[Beverly]

Have you ever been in a situation where a good friend or fellow forum owner asked you to review their site for input on potential categroy/subforum names or even help picking a domain name for the site. But when it was all over, they took full credit for all ideas and didn't even acknowledge your help in any way?

 

[Shortie]

I have had this happen yes, and it's not the best of feelings I will admit. I remember a friend coming to me and telling me his ideas and asking if I could help him with a logo and a name for his site. I was more than happy to help and I gave him a few ideas one of which he was very pleased with and chose that one. When he opened and told me about it I later found a post showing him taking all the credit for the logo and the name with no mention of me in sight. Lets just say I have been reluctant to help that friend again ever since.

 

[NetGuru]

Lol, Shortie861,examine your friends and try to decipher who is your friend and who isn't. Not everyone who knows you or who you know is your friend, I'm glad you gave this example.

 

[cyberpuppet]

Luckily I managed to come at this from a different direction and am very aware of copyright etc - for me being asked for help means I wont charge, it does not mean I will not apply copyright to my work. I would suggest that if someone asks you for assistance that you say from the start what recognition you expect - whether it be visible copyright on a logo or a small line in the foot "forum design in consultation with *****". If you make it clear from the start nobody ends up with hurt feelings.

 

[Ed321]

Life is too short to get hung up on the little stuff. I agree with the concept of get things in writing if it is that important to you or let it go when things don't turn out the way you want them to.

The corollary to don't loan money to friends unless you will be okay if you never get it back is don't provide advice or help to a friend unless you will be okay if it goes unacknowledged.

 

[cyberpuppet]

It is not so much a case of getting in writing as simply making it clear what your expectations are . The human animal has a nasty habit of assuming that because they expect such and such a behaviour that means every "decent person" has identical understanding of the "proper" way to behave when actually they dont. This leads to silly misunderstandings - helper assumes person being helped will make public declaration of thankfulness, person being helped assumes their display of gratitude has already been correct, helper feels miffed, recipient decides they are grumpy miserable moody so on so forth.

It does not take a written contract laying everything out just a "verbal" (in that lots of stuff online is written conversation) sure I will help but I do like acknowledgement/to add it to my portfolio or whatever,

 

[xTinx]

I may have been in a similar situation but it did not have anything to do with forums. Well you can give this person some benefit of the doubt. For all you know, you were able to explore the same ideas about the same time or someone gave them a similar idea. Thus, the result. But I am not really in your situation, so I can only provide an onlooker's objective point-of-view. In the even you were right about your sentiment, then just be glad that such a friend's true colors were exposed. Now you can stay away from people of such ilk and do your best to prove them wrong and that what they did didn't get to you.

 

[Goat of Departure]

I've never had this happened to me before, not in a major scale at least but when it does I tend to assassinate them in public. Just kidding. Seriously though, these people are the worst. Even if you didn't help out big time at least the nicest person would be kind enough to include you in some sort of 'Thank You' page or credit. Even if they're taking full credit at least make them say Thank You.

 

[Michael]

No not really, when I normally take people's ideas and sorta make them better or re do them in a sense. It is just cruel but normally the people who steal success are the people who fall.

 

[Deka]

Thankfully, this has never happened to me. Whenever friends ask for me some ideas on their site, I am always happy to share my thoughts. But it has never come down to them discrediting me or not thanking me for the ideas I've given. They were always very eager to "reward" my thoughts in any way. I decline though and tell them that my help is for free. If this has happened to me, my ideas were stolen and I wasn't even thanked for them, I think I'd also let it go. I'm not really one to hold grudges but of course, the friendship will still be damaged because it is trust that they've broken.